December 5, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



911 



history — far behind German, and even Eng- 

 lish children, I fancy. 



I consider ' nature study ' as a study of 

 plant and animal life at first hand, rather 

 than from books ; seeing, examining and study- 

 ing a plant or animal, how it grows; if an 

 animal, how it moves, runs, waU^s, flies, swims, 

 how it gets its livelihood; and then the child 

 can learn to observe its relation to the life 

 about it and to the world around. Let him 

 observe, for example, ants, the difference be- 

 tween the males, females and workers, how the 

 workers live and care for the colony. He 

 may see a train of ants; let him follow the 

 train off to the nest. Then there are the 

 nests and working habits of wasps and bees. 



A student of ' nature study ' — a boy or 

 girl — should raise caterpillars to the chrysalis 

 and moth or butterfly state. Collecting, feed- 

 ing them, watching them through their trans- 

 formations, is a first class lesson for a child 

 in nature study. So a boy or girl can get a 

 first lesson in physical geography and geol- 

 ogy by studying a sand heap or clay bank 

 after a rain — or the work done by a stream or 

 brook. 



Nature study is the first step towards 

 natural science, and is all-important in lead- 

 ing one to observe, experiment and reason 

 from the facts he sees. It is of prime im- 

 portance in teaching a child what a fact is in 

 these days of Christian Science and other 

 fads. A. S. Packakd. 



Brown tlNivERsiTy. 



I do not believe I can give in a few sen- 

 tences my views as to what constitutes nature 

 study. I think the thing is in a chaotic state 

 at present, and I do not feel competent to de- 

 fine it. I have fairly definite ideas as to what 

 material in botany should be included, but 

 botany is only one of the phases of the subject 

 as handled. I thinls the name nature study 

 is too indefinite to be retained. 



John M. Coulter. 



University of Chicago. 



I have your letter asking for my definition 

 of ' nature study.' I hope you will succeed 

 in getting this much-abused term properly 

 defined. 



I would have nature study mean the study 

 of living things to determine their habits, in- 

 stincts, adaptations and relations to environ- 

 ments. To be nature study in the highest 

 sense of the term, the work must be carried on 

 under natural, as opposed to artificial, condi- 

 tions. 



If a broader interpretation were given, 

 where can we stop short of geology, mineral- 

 ogy, chemistry, physics, and in fact nearly 

 everything else outside of mathematics. 



C. P. Gillette. 



Fort Collins, Colo. 



Much that has been taught under the name 

 of nature study is not properly a study of 

 nature, but a memoriter drill or an empirical 

 abstract of what some one else has learned by 

 a study of nature. The subject has too often 

 been presented under the guidance of teachers 

 who themselves have made no real study of 

 nature — who have no clear understanding of 

 the scientific method of study by which alone 

 matters of natural fact can be approached, 

 and who have not sufficient competence to 

 carry on the study of nature by themselves. 

 But nature study is sometimes what it ought 

 to be : a truly scientific and well-conducted 

 study of nature, of a grade, whether elemen- 

 tary or advanced, appropriate to the age of the 

 pupils ; as logical as geometry and as dis- 

 ciplinary as Latin, but entirely unlike either 

 one of these standard subjects. 



Direct observational appeal to natural phe- 

 nomena should always be the essential founda- 

 tion of a real knowledge of nature, and much 

 skill should be exercised by the teacher in 

 selecting from nature's inexhaustible store 

 such phenomena for study as shall really be 

 within reach of the pupils' own observation 

 and understanding. The text-books should 

 serve chiefly to broaden the knowledge gained 

 through observation by presenting additional 

 examples of similar phenomena from various 

 parts of the world. At the same time, and 

 always in a measure appropriate to the grade 

 of the class, the various other processes of 

 scientiflc method should be brought into play : 

 generalization, invention of explanations, test 

 of explanations by deduction, appeal to experi- 



